


the suspicious haircut

by midnightandmuffins



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adorable, Alternative Meeting, Banter, Chance Meetings, First Meetings, Flatmate Sherlock Holmes, Fluff, Gen, Hair, Haircuts, M/M, POV John Watson, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock's Violin, clueless john watson, hair stylist, john being like wot, meet ugly, mrs hudson being threatening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27851318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightandmuffins/pseuds/midnightandmuffins
Summary: I called after him, “Hey, sir, you don’t even know my name!”He threw over his shoulder, “I do. You’re Dr John Watson.”“How…”He stopped, turned around and looked at me.“My dear Watson. It’s written on your employee’s nametag.”orThe one where John is a hair stylist and the first time they meet at the hair dresser's, he accidentally cuts off a huge chunk of Sherlock's hair. An alternative first meeting.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	the suspicious haircut

**Author's Note:**

> hello! we can all agree that meet uglies are better than meet cutes, so here you go :D hope you enjoy, this is my first sherlock fic.

I, Dr John Watson, had never thought that I would end up at a hairdresser’s, trimming people’s hair from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon.

“Those eight years of med school,” I muttered to myself, “wasted.” I hadn’t realised that it would be so difficult to get a job once I returned to London. It seemed like no hospital or clinic wanted a soldier turned doctor from Afghanistan with ‘my background’ and my physical disability. Figured. It was alright, I would weather the storm by myself, snipping hair till I could save enough to move out of the dingy apartment I currently inhabited. Then perhaps I’d get down to finding an open doctor’s position.

‘Ding!’ The bell on the door rang, signaling that someone had entered the shop. I turned and glanced at the man with shoulder length unruly brown curls and went back to work immediately afterwards. Then I started and turned to look at him again. He was extremely tall and his features were, at least in my opinion, objectively very attractive. Not that I would be a good judge of male beauty or anything.

But that was beside the point. What had caught my attention at first was the extremely disgruntled expression on his face and the beaming elderly woman clutching his arm.

“Mrs Hudson, was this absolutely necessary? Blackmail and threats are definitely not one of your strong points, if I may say so.”

“Of course it was necessary, Sherlock dear, your hair was falling into your eyes! Your eyes! You can’t very well look rakishly handsome while you solve your cases if you can’t even see properly.”

“Mrs Hudson, the kidnapping and threatening of my violin was unnecessary.”

“Well you would never have come to the hairdresser’s otherwise.”

“Undoubtedly.”

I didn’t attempt to make sense of the conversation and dropped down to look at the (frankly still slightly sweaty) head of hair I was trying to make look presentable. But I still observed the man and the lady out of the corner of my eye.

“Mrs Hudson, you may leave.”

“Sherlock, dear, are you sure you’ll get a haircut?”

“Yes.”

“Dear, I don’t believe you.”

“Good, that.”

“You know that I will be able to see whether you’ve gotten a haircut when you get home, right, dear?”

“Ah, unforeseen circumstances.”

After a few minutes of bickering, the lady left, and the man (who I presumed was named Sherlock) scanned the room analytically.

“May I help you sir?” the young receptionist asked him politely.

The man’s eyes locked on mine and I immediately looked back to my work.

“I want him to cut my hair.” Sherlock looked at the receptionist with a look that could curdle milk. 

“Assign his current task to someone else.”

The receptionist looked mildly flabbergasted, and honestly, so did I. The client I was attending to started to protest but the man cut him off with a withering glare. In a few minutes, the seat before me had been vacated and then occupied by the frankly disturbing Mr Sherlock whatever his last name was. I was still mildly shocked. Sherlock looked at my reflection in the mirror.

“You are extremely adept at gaping with your mouth open.”

I shut the aforementioned mouth and shook myself to clear my head of thoughts.

“Good morning sir, what would you like today?”

“I have no idea what hair cutting practices are. I think the term ‘trim’ is generally associated with non-drastic changes in hair style.”

“So you want a trim?”

He stared at me like I had asked an idiotic question.

“Yes.” He enunciated every letter. Okay.

I started my work. His hair was in extreme disrepair and even with my extremely short acquaintance with the art of hair snipping, I could tell that he hadn’t gotten a haircut in a few years.

A few snips in and my leg began to ache. Not as a result of the snipping, as a result of the standing. Well, I was a soldier, I could handle it. I shifted my leg to a more comfortable position.

“When did you come back from Afghanistan?”

_Snip!_

My hands moved of their own accord in shock and in a few moments, I stood with a patch of hair in my hand which decidedly constituted more than just a _trim_. Sherlock’s eyes met mine in the mirror as he saw the hair in my hand.

“Well then, I assume that wasn’t a planned snip.”

I blinked.

And then I blinked again.

“I… I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to cut that much. You startled me, I’m extremely sorry, that was irresponsible of me, I--”

“I don’t care about my hair. When did you return from the war in Afghanistan?”

I stood for a few seconds, gaping. The man had guessed information about me, causing me to ruin his hair, and then instead of berating me for the horrible mishap, he continued to question me on my past.

I could think of nothing to say except, “I came back in January. How, did.. you?”

“It’s obvious.”

He then proceeded to explain his extremely complicated process to me, which I zoned out of because I was partially horrified at having cut off a huge chunk of his hair and also because he had just deduced that I’d spent a large portion of my life in the war in Afghanistan.

After he was done, I looked at him.

“I should probably fix your hair.”

“Yes, you should. Mrs Hudson would spontaneously combust if she saw this, and most importantly, she would probably burn my violin.”

“Wonderful.”

I tried my best to fix his hair and in the end, he looked a bit like Benedict Cumberbatch. Or so I hoped. It was rather attractive, if I was being honest, Perhaps I wasn’t that bad a judge of male beauty. I stared at him for a while and then shook my head.

Sherlock rose at the end and said, “Good enough.”

“I’m sorry for earlier--”

“You live in a dingy old apartment now and you want to move somewhere else as soon as possible.”

I stuttered. How did this man know?

“I’m currently living alone in an apartment in Mrs Hudson’s house. We could room together since we are both in search of flatmates.”

“Wait--”

“The address is 221B Baker Street. You can move in tomorrow at seven.”

“What? I… Who are you?”

He gave me another withering look. 

“My name is Sherlock Holmes and I am a consulting detective. Please refrain from asking stupid questions while we room together.”

He pulled on his coat and turned to leave.

I called, “Mr Holmes, you don’t even know my name!”

He threw over his shoulder, “I do. You’re Dr John Watson.”

“How…”

He stopped, turned around and _looked_ at me. 

“My dear Watson. It’s written on your employee’s nametag.”

Leaving me speechless, he swept out of the door.

It was only later that I stopped to wonder how he had deduced that I was a doctor.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed :DD i feed on constructive criticism so please do leave kudos and comments so i can muster the motivation to keep writing!


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